Author’s Preamble: I began drafting this letter during the weeks leading up to the election and finished it a few days before. But now we’re well beyond the inauguration, so I really couldn’t send it “as is” without something of a prologue. Even for Heron, for which the phrase, “The world has changed…,” has become something of a slogan, the election’s outcome marked a record-level high for the change index. And as I glanced at my draft in light of those results, its contents struck me as somewhat, well, outdated and possibly even trivial. This was quite discouraging. On reflection and discussion internally, however, we thought that one way to interpret these events was that the themes we struck when we changed our strategy back in 2011 were manifesting with a vengeance:
A series of videos from the Heron Foundation and Human Pictures recasts the narrative around what it is to be poor in the United States; looks to reinvent the economy to provide new paths to prosperity
Foundations increasingly seek to make investments in alignment with their charitable missions. Such "mission investments" have grown at an annualized rate of more than sixteen percent over the last five years. Confusion remains, however, about the extent to which the relevant laws permit directors or trustees of a foundation to consider mission-related factors, in addition to this paper analyzes the legal considerations applicable to private and community foundations under federal and state laws. We conclude that foundations have considerable latitude to make investments that further their charitable missions,s even if this results in greater risk or lower financial returns.
Heron's 2015 financial statements.
For over fifty years, the global economy (and that includes the U.S. economy) has felt the effects of three related long-term trends, widely reported and acknowledged. They are: first, a weakening of the pull of place; second, disintermediation; and third, closely related to both, the explosion in the use of information technology, meaning that in labor markets there are more journeymen, no assurance of life employment and a continual evolution of skills needed to make a living.
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The F.B. Heron Foundation (“Heron”) exists solely to serve a public purpose — in our case, making investments that further the ability of people and communities to move out of poverty and thrive. This purpose guides not only our grant-making, but the use of all of our resources, including investment capital, so that we use them fully to contribute to the reduction of poverty, the widening of opportunity, and the improvement in material and social well-being for disadvantaged people and communities. The Heron investment policy thus reflects our intent to determine the social and financial return on all assets, and to select opportunities for deploying capital, whether as grants or as investments, so as to maximize both kinds of return.
A speech by Ambassador James A. Joseph, F.B. Heron Board Member and President Emeritus of the Council on Foundations.
Heron's 2014 financial statement
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